On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 02:36:54PM -0500, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:> On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 11:01:50AM -0800, Greg KH wrote:> > --- /dev/null> > +++ gregkh-2.6/Documentation/ABI/private/alsa> > @@ -0,0 +1,8 @@> > +What: Kernel Sound interface> > +Date: Feburary 2006> > +Who: Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz>> > +Description:> > + The use of the kernel sound interface must be done> > + through the ALSA library. For more details on this,> > + please see http://www.alsa-project.org/ and contact> > + <alsa-devel@alsa-project.org>> > How can something as widely used as sound not work from one kernel version > to the next, as seems to be implied with the "private" nature of the ABI? > This is a total cop-out and is IMHO very amateur of the developers. If > something like this is to be the case, at the very least the alsa libraries > need to provide a stable ABI and be shipped with the kernel.

Then I suggest you work with the ALSA developers to come up with such a"stable" api that never changes. They have been working at this for anumber of years, if it was a "simple" problem, it would have been donealready...

Anyway, netlink is in the same category, with a backing userspacelibrary tie :)

And, I have nothing against shipping userspace libraries with the kernellike this, if people think that's the easiest way to do it. But eventhen, the raw interface is still "private" and you need to use thelibrary to access it properly.